


Zugzwang

by wirewrappedlily



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, and the one time he had no sodding idea, feel free to give me more, five times Jim knew what Bones was going to do next, last of the 5+1 requests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 12:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We’re gonna try something new today, Bonesy.” Jim murmured gently. </p><p>Leonard grunted, still wanting to be asleep. </p><p>“I’ve taken all the liqour out of this room. You and I are gonna talk about what’s going on, and we’re damn well gonna do it sober.” </p><p>“You fucked me into a state of bliss is what’s goin’ on, Jim. Leave it alone.” </p><p>5 times Jim knew exactly what Bones was about to do, and the one time he was dead wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zugzwang

**Author's Note:**

> Request made by [set-phasers-to-bacon](http://set-phasers-to-bacon.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> And, once again: feel free to drop by my Tumblr [wirewrappedlily](http://wirewrappedlily.tumblr.com/) and request/prompt/talk to me about random things (for some reason, I know about the mating habits of bumblebees and also can quote, or bastardize quotes to suit my needs, Shakespeare and the like. I can be interesting. If your expectations are low).

1\. 

“We’re gonna try something new today, Bonesy.” Jim murmured gently. 

Leonard grunted, still wanting to be asleep. 

“I’ve taken all the liqour out of this room. You and I are gonna talk about what’s going on, and we’re damn well gonna do it sober.” 

“You fucked me into a state of bliss is what’s goin’ on, Jim. Leave it alone.” 

“You’re my best friend, Bones. We could be good together. Don’t drink this away, and don’t think that I was only in it for the sex.” 

Leonard opened his eyes, looking at his idiot best friend, “So, what? You want to be with me?” 

“I want to wake you up with a blow job every damn day and growl ‘mine’ at anyone who looks at you twice.” Leonard’s features twisted, amused as hell, and he reached up to kiss Jim sweetly, easing Jim back down against him. “Never done this before.” 

“‘S okay. ‘S like us, but with the added bonus of sex and more fighting.” 

“You’ll date me?” 

“Totally ruins my first and only attempt to have a fling for once in my damn life, but you’re worth it.” 

2\. 

“Stick me with that hypo and you won’t be getting laid for a month.” Jim groaned, stopping Leonard short. 

“Don’t be such an infant.” He chastised, “How’d you know I had a hypo?” 

He administered it, and Jim hissed at him like a sodden cat. “Because ‘s you and I got knocked out.” It was gentler than usual, at least. Jim sighed, looking at Leonard like he was studying a particularly difficult problem. 

Leonard reached down, rubbing his fingers over Jim’s temple, “Not just knocked out, darlin’. What d’you remember?” 

“Not much after beaming down.What happened?” 

“You were attacked. There was a parasitic...worm, for lack of a better word, that attached itself to your spinal cord. If it hadn’t been for Scotty realizing you were in trouble, you would’ve taken a phaser to the Bridge. He and Spock had to team up to knock you out. You were in surgery to remove the parasite for seven hours.” Leonard’s hand was cupping Jim’s cheek and neck, his eyes betraying the steadiness in his voice. 

“I love you, too, Bones.” Jim whispered, reaching up to bring him down. Leonard went, kissing Jim full and soft. “Are you okay? Seven hours…” 

“That was five days ago.” Leonard whispered against his lips, and Jim brought in a small gasp of breath, trailing his fingers over Leonard’s hair, comforting. “Darlin’, I’m okay.” Jim shook his head. 

“Not gonna believe it until I get to hold you.” Jim whispered, “I’m sorry, Bones.” 

“‘S the life we chose, Jim.” Leonard sighed, bringing up the blankets around Jim’s chest, pushing his fingers through Jim’s hair. “So long as you come back to me, I don’t care, an’ you know it.” 

3.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, Jim hypoed Leonard in the neck as soon as he got his hands on the cure to Xenopolycythemia, knowing that Leonard was feeling like Hell warmed over already, but wouldn’t say a word about it. 

Hissing, Leonard snapped at him, “Dammit, Jim!” 

“It’s the cure to the nasty you’ve been hiding from me, Bones.” Jim told him simply, looking him dead in the eye. “I saw that you got sick when Ambassador Spock and I were in the mind-meld. You wouldn’t have told me ‘til it was too fucking late, and I wouldn’t have had the answer to tweak it into being less of a pain in the ass if I hadn’t seen it.” 

Leonard was staring at him, “What’re the side-effects--” 

“I tweaked it so that there weren’t any. Well, minimal ones, but close enough. You’re gonna have a craving for iron-rich foods like no tomorrow and you may have a nightmare reminiscent of a bad trip tonight, but you’re sleeping with me, so I’ll chase that away. And you _are_ sleeping with me, Bones. I fully intend on taking such good care of my patient that--” Jim cut off as Leonard lunged forwards, kissing him hard and deep. Fighting a grin, Jim slipped his arms around his lover, giving over to it. 

“I should be in Med Bay. You should have--” 

“Christine was the one that helped me synthesize the cure. You, too, actually, but you didn’t know. Which I’m kind of mad at you for, because you’re brilliant, Bones: you should have known I wouldn’t let you be sick. It’s been cleared with her and M’Benga that I’ll be watching over you tonight. Anything goes wrong, they’re both on standby. And now that you’re satisfied that medical professionals actually did help me do this, you should sit down and just wait and see what I had cooked up for us. Iron-rich and yummy, I promise.” 

Jim kissed Leonard’s forehead, pulling out his chair expectantly. 

4\. 

“Bones, you don’t want to meet my mother.” Jim told him, arms folded over his chest and features a mask of tired annoyance, “Believe me, you don’t. I didn’t grow up how you grew up, and you’re not gonna like it. Please, Bones: trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to meet my mother.” 

5\. 

Jim was waiting for him on the Observation Deck, silent and unassuming, handing over a bottle of Scotty’s moonshine without a flicker of expression on his face. He was letting Leonard have this one. 

“Stay.” 

Jim nodded, keeping silent as he looked out into the stars. 

+1. 

“We need to talk, Jim.” 

It’d been coming for months, now. Leonard hadn’t been letting Jim touch him; hadn’t been so infuriatingly contrary to Jim tugging his fingers through Leonard’s hair even while he moved into the touch with a moan. He hadn’t looked at Jim in weeks; and Jim ached for the last time they’d lain together in their shared quarters, because Leonard hadn’t really wanted Jim’s advances anymore. They’d fucked hard and fast, but so impersonal Jim was dying inside. 

He’d gone to Nyota and Christine: he’d begged them to tell him what he’d done wrong. Both of them had pushed hands through his hair and held him as he cried because he was losing his Bones. He was losing the part of him at the very middle, the part that made him stand up, day after day, and fight. He’d been careful--so careful!--with every mission; he’d been careful with his allergies. Yet it’d still come that Leonard was the only one who could stitch him up; and Leonard was, now, the one tearing what loose seams Jim had left. 

Jim wanted to be sick; he wanted to die. Anything would be better. It would. Because Bones didn’t love him, not anymore. 

Jim sat with him, in his office, because he’d come down to check on Scotty from his latest bout of doing himself injury to try to do Jim Kirk a favour (because Leonard was happy when he had someone to fix, and Jim needed Leonard happy now--hell, even Spock had noticed). 

“Jim--” 

“Please.” Jim said. And he didn’t know if he was asking Leonard not to break him, or if he was asking the mercy of Leonard ending him entirely as well as ending the friendship and love that had lasted longer for Jim than any other love ever had before. 

Leonard gasped softly, seeing something in Jim’s face that brought back a rush of memory. He was around his desk and seizing Jim’s face in his hands before he could think; staring into those blue eyes that threatened their owner with filling. “What are you thinking, sweetheart?” Leonard asked, voice soft and husky. Jim remembered that voice from the Academy, from a birthday that had ended with Jim actively trying to die because, it turned out, it was a worse day in San Francisco than it was in Riverside, even without his mother--who would’ve thunk? “Jim, what the hell are you thinking?!” 

Leonard was almost yelling, so he knew very well, Jim knew. He struggled around the gaping hole in his chest, trying to breathe without wheezing for the pain and trying to keep himself in check, because Leonard was a damn professional, and he’d save his goddamn life if Jim gave him a reason to think Jim was, yet again, in danger of taking it. Leonard’s hands moved from his face to his shoulders, shaking him, his knuckles white around the fistfuls of fabric. 

“Dammit, man, I’m a doctor, not a mind reader! You always know, Jim. You always know what I’m thinking, why the hell can’t I know, just once, what’s gotten to you?” 

A tear slid traitorously down Jim’s cheek and Leonard bit out a curse Jim actually hadn’t heard him use before. 

Leonard slid to his knees, shifting Jim’s chair with one hand so that he could. “Jim, whatever it is, please, darlin’.” 

“Don’t.” Jim choked. “Don’t...don’t drag this out...if you’re gonna break up with me, damn well do it, don’t stay with me, unhappy, because you think I might do something rash. I don’t know what I’d do if you did that. If you made me do that to you. I don’t, Bones. I love you too damn much. Please, Bones.” 

“What?!” Leonard snapped, his face furious. “So much for your damn psy abilities, Lothario: you’re wrong! I’d never break up with you, you damn fool! I couldn’t survive it, and I damn well know that. You’re catagorically the only reason I’ve lasted this long, after what’s happened to me. I thought I was done, Jim, and then you sauntered in and proved me wrong! You think I’m breaking up with you?!” 

“Y-You haven’t...you barely let me touch you anymore, Bones--” 

“I was scared I was gonna burst with it if I let you touch me, Jim.” 

Jim looked confused, his eyes already turning red, though no other tears were allowed to fall. “What?” 

“I wanted to make you have a night like you give me most nights, Jim: I wanted to do something that would make this night stand out, make it perfect. I’ve fucked up royally, because this is not how I wanted it remembered.” He pressed his hand to Jim’s chest, knowing there was a panic attack hiding in those blue eyes. Leonard reached into his pocket, drawing out a small box and setting it on Jim’s knee, “I told you that there was one rule with us: don’t ever propose to the divorcee. So he’s proposing to you, Jim. Marry me. Marry me and never for another second think that I’d ever want to leave you. I don’t. I never could.” 

Jim’s chest was hurting so much that he finally raised his hand to it, struggling for breath as relief destroyed him and joy flooded in, his head light because it was all so goddamn much. He started nodding when no air even came out, and Leonard shook his head at him, grabbing Jim by the back of the neck and pulling him down, kissing him soundly. Jim whimpered, jolting, and Leonard was reluctant to let him go even to breathe. 

Leaning their foreheads together, Leonard opened the box, picking up the ring in a blindingly fast movement and securing it to Jim’s finger, judging that was quite enough air and kissing him again, harder.


End file.
